Battling Goliath Again -- EMI

[pianodad]

I suspect many people have encountered the ignorant hostility of music rights societies. I'm about at wits end with EMI.

They recently claimed ownership of two videos I made of my son's playing. When he was twelve, we recorded the rondo movement of the Pathetique. Here it is:

EMI claims that the audio is actually Samson Francois. Really? This is absurd.

They have also claimed ownership of this one, the first movement of Mozart's K333:

On this one, I supposedly used audio from Daniel Barenboim's performance. Get real.

I am beyond angry. These are the recordings of a young kid, made in my house, on my piano, using my crude recording devices. Yet the mandarins at EMI have claimed ownership, and then reiterated their claim, all without bothering to have a human being use an ear.

YouTube now threatens me with legal liability. Do I have to threaten EMI with the same. This is beyond annoying. They are almost impossible to contact. I have sent a formal snail mail letter, and I have written to Daniel Barenboim, though I suspect he'll never see it.

I understand the need to protect intellectual property rights, and I'm sure that many people have thieved copyrighted work to insert into their videos. But I seem to have no recourse here but giving EMI a dose of bad publicity.

I have also posted a similar thread at Piano World.

[ronde_des_sylphes]

I assume you got a notification along the lines of:

"Your video, xxxx, .... may include content that is owned or administered by these entities:

* Entity: yyyy Publishing Content Type: Musical Composition
* Entity: Music Publishing Rights Collecting Society Content Type: Musical Composition"

and the video is flagged with something like

"Matched third party content. View Copyright Info."

I'm pretty sure I have read somewhere that YouTube has an internal database of music tracks and checks videos to see if the audio track matches against their database (even for only small parts of the track). So, for example, you upload a home-made video, but you have put a sample of a popular song into the video as a backing soundtrack, it will detect that you have used copyright material and flag the video. What I suspect is that the check performed is along the lines of "is there a database-registered melody?" within the video and not "is there a specific performance?". It demonstrably isn't a sophisticated waveform-comparison algorithm. Naturally this has the consequence that videos of people performing well-known compositions will be incorrectly flagged as utilising copyrighted recordings.

Assuming it's an automated process, it isn't acting with anything approaching common sense, and it's also not EMI acting. My advice would be to submit a copyright claim dispute form (there should be a link enabling you to do this somewhere within the copyright notice accessible from within your video manager) and in my limited experience the claim and flags will then go away. I hope that's of use to you.

[pianodad]

I did submit a dispute form and EMI reiterated its claim. I have disputed their reiterated claim. Now I am at the point where YouTube is threatening me if EMI again claims the work. I am presumed guilty of copyright violation on EMI's word alone.

[ronde_des_sylphes]

I see. A fine example of corporate idiocy. I'd suggest 1. you download/save the video and any others you have online in case of account deletion. 2. Email Youtube and EMI suggesting that, before they persist in making defamatory claims that you have committed copyright infringement, they have a duty of care to ensure that their claims have some basis: it is manifestly obvious that no such care has been taken. 3. Log the hours spent dealing with the claim and present them with a bill for time wasted on your part. 4. Send the details to any techno-savvy music journalist you know. Additionally, though more frivolously, I'd be tempted to report any EMI videos for infringing your son's copyright! Good luck.

[pianodad]

I wish I knew a techno-savvy journalist who might want to expose this side of corporate bullying. If anyone here knows such a person, feel free to pass this information along. The power of exposure and embarrassment seem my only weapons, unless and until I can get a direct way to contact EMI.

[rachmaninoff_forever]

I would sue them for wasting my time.
 

[ronde_des_sylphes]

Getting it mentioned on a commonly-read blog might be the best bet. It's quite obvious the YouTube identification tool doesn't work properly: there are plenty misattributed videos testifying to that.

[cmg]

I think your son plays better than Samson Francois, even when he was alive!  The Mozart, too, is lovely.  He's a real pianist, dad!

You might want to contact "Gramophone" magazine.  Even a "letter to the editor," if not an investigative piece on this corporate idiocy, would be helpful.  THey've published my rants in the past in the letters section.  Also, contact Stephen Hough at his blog or website.  He's a mensch and just might take up the cause.


 

[pianodad]

Gramophone! Now that's an interesting idea!

[perfect_pitch]

I suspect many people have encountered the ignorant hostility of music rights societies. I'm about at wits end with EMI.

OKAY... First of all - calm down. I get plenty of these, and I dispute the claim, claiming in the reason that it is me playing this on my piano in my own room etc... and that there's no claim here to be made.

I was even once claimed that I copied a female persons playing, despite the fact you could clearly seem I was a male. Dispute it, wait a couple of days - problem should solve itself.

Seriously - I've had dozens of these. None of them actually stick.

[pianodad]

What if I don't WANT to calm down ...   

Look, I already filed the counterclaim. EMI rejected it and re-imposed its claim. I'm sure they did this automatically, and without any human actually viewing the material. They do this without giving any information that would allow me to contact a real person inside EMI.

I have had these disputes in the past with other companies. "Believe" thought my son was some pianist named Carl Seeman, while UMG wouldn't name their "artist," With these firms, I have been able to get inside the company wall to a real person. Once they viewed the videos they have all released the claim. But I have to waste my uncompensated time to force the issue. Their automated claim is automatically accepted by YouTube. And when they reiterate the claim, the language addressed to me gets nasty and threatening.

[perfect_pitch]

Okay - my fault... I didn't real your 2nd and 3rd posts...

That's very, very odd. Now I can understand your frustration...

[49410enrique]

i am sorry for your troubles, i just want to throw an idea out there, why use youtube? (i mean in a marketplace with good competition we as the consumer have the choice, we can simply decide whose product we like and will use or not like and then not use).

 i've used vimeo since before i started to use youtube (some), and i've never had an issue with it. i love it way more actually. i also find overall the community is much better behaved (not as many jerks/trolls), the playback quality is also really great.

there's another video account i have that i kept as a back up that even allowed you to have a unique domain, it was pretty cool but since i was so happy with vimeo i never really ran with it (i only used yt for a few minor reasons, not anything against vimeo, and even today, yt is only an alternate account).

you might want to just migrate videos over there and just be through with them. also the way they run things over there, i would be shocked if you had near the amount of problems (if any) you're having with the trwerps at google

[starstruck5]

It's a ridiculous situation, but Enrique is right in my view -just close your account with You Tube.

Your son plays very well btw -not quite up to Barenboims standard yet -but given time and dedication who knows!

[pianodad]

I'm thinking that the only reason the EMI's of the world haven't yet gone after other venues is the fact that YouTube remains the giant. There is no reason why the music rights societies like EMI and Angel couldn't also make copyright claims against any video posted anywhere. The threat of legal action has YouTube kowtowing, and I suspect it would make Vimeo bend as well, if Vimeo had the audience of YouTube.

[ronde_des_sylphes]

Are you sure that it's actually EMI making the claim? The reason I ask is that it wouldn't surprise me if the YT automated content checker, having 'detected' the audio as belonging to EMI, then issues a claim on their behalf, masquerading as EMI. Alternatively, it notifies them and EMI then act like idiots. I suspect that the content checker has arisen as a consequence of the various copyright suits YT was facing. There was a major one v Viacom, but I don't know how that turned out. Obviously there is a vast amount of material hosted by YT which genuinely is in breach of copyright. I'm guessing YT created their automated content checker as some kind of sop to the large media organisations, so that they could at least claim to be doing something about the problem, and your case is an unfortunate (and frankly reprehensible) example of innocent parties caught in the crossfire.

[pianodad]

My experience with other companies is that they are part of the claim. When I have wormed my way into a direct email address, the person at the other end has released the claim, usually with an apology and a comment about the kid's ability. So yes, I do think EMI is directly involved. Remember, this has now gone two rounds. The first round was clearly an automated bot that "discovered" the match. But EMI had to permit the first threat, and after I appealed, they had to reiterate their claim. I doubt this is purely a YouTube automated process at this point.

[pianodad]

Thanks to a poster at Piano World who suggested that I contact Norman Lebrecht. He took an interest in this issue:

https://www.artsjournal.com/slippeddisc/2012/12/this-is-davids-boy-but-emi-classics-thinks-its-young-barenboim.html

Now I must hope that someone at EMI notices.